If you think there is no registration of firearms ownership, read this.

The entire thing does not make any sense.
Even scanned records are not searchable without running OCR on them, and OCR on handwritten forms remains a real PITA.
If they have simply scanned images they have not done anything very important (and it does say of FFLs, not the folks named on the 4473s).
Searching through scanned images without OCR clean up wil take almost as long as going through the paper. A human will have to look at each and every omage to see if it matches the make model and S/N being searched.

I do not like BATFE any mnore than anyone else here, but getting spun up over a non-event is just a waste of effort.
 
For what it's worth, a few years ago, I purchased a firearm through my favorite FFL. When he let me know that the TBI background check had come through clean, he also told me how the operator had rattled off a list of every firearm I had bought for the last several months.

Yeah, I know this is impossible, there are no records, yadda yadda yadda. But the source is rather impeccable.
 
WA is exactly correct (of course, he works in a gun shop).

There is no "registration" per se. (or, if there is registration, it is both illegal and kept secret).

There are no databases kept AT the BATF (unless you're a conspiracay theorist, as I am, but put that aside for now).

The procedure is this.

When a "gun crime" occurs, the BATF can "trace" (not merely "look up"), but the process is rather burdensome and onerous on the BATF. First of all the gun has to be used in a crime to kick in the procedure. The BATF goes to the manufacturer and asks the manufacturer to tell them from its records, to which distributorship the gun was sold. Then the BATF goes to that distributor, and asks them to provide which FFL the gun was sold to. Then the BATF goes to the actual physical premises of that FFL and manually has to thumb through the 4473s until they find the one with the gun in question (I don't know HOW exactly time-consuming this is, because I don't know what form of organization of the 4473s is used - it may depend on the FFL). Then and only then is the gun linked to a name (and address and.....). From there, there may be more footwork, if the original owner has sold it.

So is that system "registration"? Well, arguably, I suppose, but no, not as registration is defined by most people, and not as registration is defined by the law. The law says the BATF must destroy the information they receive on the NICS checks after 90 days.

We should begin to get worried if the BATF reveals that is knows who owns a particular gun, even though that gun was NOT used in any crime, OR if it knows what gun-crime gun was used in a crime, and never has to show up at the FFL's premises to search the 4473s, to do so.

The hubbub usually comes about when FFL's go out of business, at which time they must by law, turn over all of their 4473s and other documents to the BATF. BATF is still not supposed to compile them into a database (a "registry"), but merely hang onto them in archives for crime-gun searches. If you're like me, with a deep distrust of the gov't, you think they have probably already compiled every nugget of information into the best computer that your tax money can buy, searchable 9 ways to sunday, but are just keeping this fact a secret. On the other hand, if didn't forget to take your meds, or if no prescription for you is necessary, then you believe that they are following the law. :)

KS, I would be very interested to see that video or a transcript of it, where the head of the BATF is essentially admitting that it breaks the law.
 
The nightmare about illegalizing guns, that with gun ownership databases the anti-gun banners can show up at your door to collect your guns, scares me. And, for that, I'm not a great big proponent of a database system.

Still, I have to say that I am somewhat intrigued by the notion of a national registry. To pick up a gun at a crime scene and be able to immediately identify exactly who the proper owner SHOULD be, and whether they are in some way RESPONSIBLE for the gun ending up in the murderer's hands, is an intriguing thought...

For me, personally, I know where every single gun I own is. I pull them out and check on them all the time. If one goes missing, I'm calling 911, the FBI, Lifestar, the CIA, the Secret Service, I'll even make an international call to the KGB if I think it will mean finding my gun and getting it returned to me. I wonder seriously about all these "stolen" guns, if they were taken while the owner was unawares, or if the gun owner was simply being negligent in storage and security for his weapons. In short, I think that a national registry would answer some very puzzling questions about crimes with guns (guns don't cause crime, stupid people cause crime, and some of them hold guns while they do it).

Don't get me wrong. I still think the risk of harm outweighs the benefits of a national registry. But still, it's interesting to think how some 12 year old kid got hold of an Uzi, retailing at thousands of dollars. (You hear about this sort of thing all the time, and the guns often times have clean histories.) I wonder, who misplaced an Uzi and thought, "Oh well. I don't need to call the cops about it."?

Just food for more debate...
 
First, I am stunned, sir. You write as if you are not a young man and certainly seem educated as to the RKBA struggle, but I must express my complete surprise that you would think that ATF has ever followed the law.:confused:

ATF is a rogue agency with a long history of ignoring the law in order to impose their dream of a governmental monopoly on firearms. Of course, ATF has admitted to breaking the law! Whose going to stop them? Congress? The President? Both share their vision of a disarmed American citizenry.

In Spring of 1994 it was ATF Agent Pat Haynes would went on television and told the nation that "[w]e've [ATF] already computerized 60 million." Hmmm, computerized? But, wait, that's not really registration, right? http://www.rkba.org/knox/16mar95

As I have stated and ATF agents have stated, ATF has a centralized registry of Title I firearms in West Virginia. Its records are incomplete but they serve as a base for who owns firearms. It is not the exact guns they are looking for, but the owners.

When the time comes to round up the firearms owners anyone who has ever owned a gun will be arrested regardless of whether they know about current inventory.
 
"When he let me know that the TBI background check had come through clean, he also told me how the operator had rattled off a list of every firearm I had bought for the last several months."

Sounds like TBI is keeping records.
Look to your state legislature.

While BATFE may be a PITA and broken the law, simply scanning in hand written records does not create a searchable data base.
OCR is Optical Character Recognition, and while the software has greatly improved it still creates a lot of errors unless it is trained to a specific persons hand writing, and even then if you write on a sloped surface it can create enough change to mess up the software.
Absent something more solid than a dumb beaurocrat who probably has no idea what he is actually talking about i remain unconvinced.
An image of a piece of paper is not a database, any more than a roll of microfilm is a database. A person stil has to look through the images.
 
I have a follow up question.

How long does the dealer keep the 4473's? Life of the business?

I thought I remember hearing only ten years, but I could easily be wrong. I know with a private sale in IL I have to keep someons FOID for 10 years. Maybe that's where I got the number.
 
As an aside, I would note that a politician's first order of business is to get elected.

Therefore, if ATF records indicate that over 50% of the electorate are committed gun owners and / or the CHL records for a given state indicate that greater than 50% of the electorate have permits...

...there will be no anti-gun politicians.

Go buy a gun today with your name writ large on the 4473 and get or renew your CHL. End of problem.

:)
 
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